Zimbabwe: Loyalty for Sale – – How Patronage Networks Captured the Zimbabwean State

A transactional political economy in Zimbabwe fosters corruption and dependency, as loyalty to power trumps democratic principles, disenfranchising everyday citizens.

Zimbabwe’s political economy in 2026 is less a system of institutions than a marketplace of transactions, a bazaar where authority is bartered through money, favours, jobs and protection. What passes for governance is not the impartial application of rules but a choreography of patronage, a transactional calculus that has hollowed…